If you have been trawling the web in the hopeless search for some piece of news that's completely stunning, how about the "rumour" being repeated (suspiciously similarly) by TechCrunch's Michael Arrington and Valleywag that Apple is in "late-stage" talks to buy Twitter - yes, that Twitter - for $700m, to be announced at WWDC in June?

The TechCrunch post rather weirdly has "Google got shut down" in its headline - perhaps meaning that Google got frozen out if/when it approached Twitter with an offer (don't take the idea that Google made any approach as gospel) and then launches into it:

"Apple is in late stage negotiations to buy Twitter and is hoping to announce it at WWDC in June," said a normally reliable source this evening, adding that the purchase price would be $700 million in cash.

However Arrington then expresses his own doubts:

The trouble is we've checked with other sources who claim to know nothing about any Apple negotiations. If these discussions are happening, Twitter is keeping them very quiet indeed. We would have passed on reporting this rumor at all, but other press is now picking it up.

Oh, well, if "other press" (read: blogs) are "picking it up" (read: repeating it) then it must be true, eh?

And now over to Valleywag:

"A source who's plugged into the Valley's deal scene and has been recruited by Apple for a senior position says Apple and Twitter are in serious negotiations, with the goal of unveiling a deal by June 8, when Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference launches in San Jose."

Though some doubts do intrude, even at Valleywag - basically, you can see the writer (wave to Owen Thomas) thinking "what the hell is this tieup even about if it happens":

What does Twitter, an adorable but unprofitable startup, have to do with a hardware company like Apple? The iPhone is the obvious driver of the deal: The many iPhone apps like Tweetie that people use to post Twitter messages are hot sellers for Apple. But Apple gets the benefit of Twitter-addicted iPhone users whether or not it owns Twitter. And it seems like an odd cultural fit, since Apple's hardly known for its Web prowess.

Apple isn't buying Twitter. There's no corporate fit. It's not going to be announced at WWDC. It's not going to be bought for $700m.

As Kara Swisher of AllthingsD points out, "even the wording [of the Techcrunch and Valleywag posts] is identical". (Let's hope nobody is copying anybody else here. That would be awful.)

So she neatly rips apart the rumour: Biz Stone and Evan Williams are both in New York, which isn't where Apple is, to pick up an award, which isn't the way to close a serious deal.

Quoth Swisher:

Oh, the very notion of Apple and Twitter is a Techmeme dream-ticket, sure to be chewed over for days on end. (I once considered doing a post that just said "AppleTwitterAppleTwitterAppleTwitter…." for 1,000 words to see how much idiotic traffic I would get.)

More to the point, as she notes, if Twitter were being negotiated over, then there would be epic tussles to buy it - which would include Google and Microsoft (and maybe even Yahoo? No, perhaps not these days) because it would fit so much better into what search engine companies do than what a hardware maker does. Remember all the back and forth over Facebook when it was selling a bit of itself to Microsoft - no, Google - no, Yahoo - no, it's Microsoft at the wire at the end of 2007? The owners of plush hotels with conference rooms in Silicon Valley hardly knew how to keep the teams of negotiators apart and served with coffee. This time? Nothing of the sort. Tumbleweed. No negotiations.

So if anyone suggests to you that Apple is about to buy Twitter, tell them "no, they aren't. I read that in the Guardian."

Come back and lash me if I'm wrong, obviously. But I think here the odds are astronomical.